Overview[edit]

Trinidad moruga scorpion, ripe and ready to pick

Paul Bosland, a chili pepper expert and director of the Chile Pepper Institute, said, "You take a bite. It doesn't seem so bad, and then it builds and it builds and it builds. So it is quite nasty."[2]

Aside from the heat, the Trinidad moruga scorpion has a tender fruit-like flavor, which makes it a sweet-hot combination.[3] The pepper can be grown from seeds in most parts of the world. In North America, the growing season varies regionally from the last spring hard frost to the first fall hard frost. Freezing weather ends the growing season and kills the plant, but otherwise they are perennials which grow all year, slowing in colder weather.

On August 07, 2013, the Guinness World Records rated the 'Carolina Reaper' the world's hottest pepper, dethroning the ghost pepper and moruga scorpion.[4]